• Report: ATT threatens to shut down One America News if it continues to air conservative programs.

• Report: Apple threatens to remove app if Parler continues to carry posts banned by Twitter.

• Report: Amazon threatens to kick Parler off its servers if Parler continues to carry posts banned by Twitter.

First Amendment? Freedom of speech and of the press? Media cartels violating anti-trust laws? Restraint of trade? No, nothing to see here.

Can a nation remain free without freedom of speech? Can freedom of speech exist in an atmosphere of threats by big tech, on which it depends? These are not rhetorical questions.

What really matters, what we call people, or what they actually do? In the past we called them Dr Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda and public enlightenment. And we called them Marshal Beria, chairman of the KGB secret police. And now we call them Jack Dorcey, head of Twitter. And we call them Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook.

But what they did, and what they do, is control what we see, what we hear, what we read…and what we don’t. No, I’m not claiming we have sunk to the level of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Far from it. What I am saying is that we are tending in that direction. Many of us recognize this sad fact, but we are in denial.  So we do nothing. We submit. Like sheep, we allow ourselves to be fleeced. We dare not think about what the farmer has in mind for us next.

The time to pull the fire alarm is when we first smell smoke, not when the building is fully involved in flames. Then it’s too late. Then all we can do is try to save ourselves, while the beautiful edifice our ancestors build and protected with so much blood and sweat is lying in ruins. All we can do is grieve for what we allowed to be taken from us because of our apathy and cowardice.